LONDON, Jan 3 — The category winners for the 2017 Costa Book Awards were announced yesterday night, with Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 among the 2017 shortlistees to get recognition.

Also among books honored in this round of awards was Inside the Wave, a collection of poetry by the late author Helen Dunsmore, who died in June.

Category winners for the Costa prize are awarded in the fields of First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book, with the winning books then going on to compete for Costa Book of the Year.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, a bestseller in the UK last year, and Honeyman’s debut novel, tells the touching story of a woman leading a single but isolated life who must come out of her shell, while in Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor tells the story of the search for a missing girl set against the background of village life.

Rebecca Stott’s In the Days of Rain is the memoir of her father, who was a member of the fundamentalist Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren, while Dunmore’s poetry collection deals with the borderline between the living and the dead. Children’s book winner The Explorer tells the harrowing story of a group of four youngsters stranded in the Amazon jungle.

The full list of category winners follows:

First Novel - Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Novel - Jon McGregor, Reservoir 13

Biography - Rebecca Stott, In the Days of Rain

Poetry - Helen Dunmore, Inside the Wave

Children’s Book - Katherine Rundell, The Explorer

The Costa Book of the Year will be announced on January 30. — AFP-Relaxnews